Chapter 1

BACKGROUND TO WAR

The geopolitical problems, border disputes, tribal rivalries, uneven economic
growth, and lack of social and political reforms within the Persian Gulf
nations are largely the result of developments in Southwest Asia since
World War 1. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire during the war and the
discovery of oil in the Gulf region created the conditions not only for
internal chaos but also for external competition among the world's most
powerful nations for control of those immense oil resources. Late twentieth-century
developments in the area are the direct result of that big power rivalry
and its effect on the political development of the states involved.

Emergence of the Post-World War I Persian Gulf States

With the defeat of the Central Powers during World War I, the Ottoman Empire
quickly disintegrated. While the United States watched, the European members
of the victorious allied coalition, France and Great Britain, reshaped
the pieces into spheres of influence, drew boundaries, and set up dynasties.
The years immediately after the war saw the emergence of a spate of new
Middle Eastern kingdoms and protectorates.

At least twelve of the new political entities that emerged on the Arabian
Peninsula after World War I faced problems regarding acceptance of their
borders by native inhabitants as well as neighbors. Many traditional tribal
and ethnic areas, including regions crossed by nomads, were disrupted by
the post-World War I borders. At least twenty-two boundary disputes developed
in the region after the war, with armed conflict arising at least twenty-one
times and some disputes being settled only to erupt anew. Overlapping claims
to grazing land or water, interfamily rivalries, and assertions of historical
rights by aggrieved groups all worked against peaceful negotiations. In
Iraq's case, the border with Kuwait was one of a number of areas in dispute.
Conflicts over the neutral zone between Iraq and Saudi Arabia lasted until
1975, as did border disputes with Iran. The Iraqi-Jordanian border remained
in dispute until 1984.1

Great Britain was the most active of the European imperial powers in
the establishment of nations and dynasties. On 18 December 1914, Britain
declared Egypt a protectorate, making that country nominally independent.
The British also set up monarchies for the offspring of their former ally,
the Hashemite Sherif Hussein ibn Ali of Mecca, who had been deposed during
the consolidation of Saud family rule in Arabia. They established a protectorate
called Iraq and enthroned one son, Feisal, there. They also split off Transjordan
(later Jordan), the portion of Palestine that lay east of the Jordan River,
from the western part between the river and the Mediterranean Sea, and
installed Feisal's brother Abdullah on the throne. In the western portion
the British committed themselves to establishment of a national home for
Jews. The flurry of coronations ignored only the

5

Kurds, whose homeland included parts of the newly formed states of Iraq,
Syria, Turkey, and Persia (later Iran). Kurdish independence had been on
the wartime agenda of the allies, who now decided to postpone action.2

The British adopted a pragmatic approach to control of the region. Because
of the immense oil potential and important pipeline and transportation
routes, political stability was paramount. The best way to achieve that
goal was through the establishment of indigenous constitutional monarchies,
buttressed and dominated by Britain under the cloak of League of Nations
mandates. That approach proved less costly than direct rule.3

The Great War had changed things, underlining the importance of oil
for the continued power and prosperity of the industrial world. As early
as 1914 the government of Great Britain, quicker than other industrial
powers to see the potential importance of oil, had already become majority
owner of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which controlled major oil fields
in Persia. Postwar competition for oil, which pitted France against Britain
and later drew in the United States, would go beyond mere commercial rivalries.
At stake was the future of the West. The effort to reconstruct the Persian
Gulf region represented the beginnings of a global power struggle to secure
the oil resources of the Middle East.4

Initially the contest for Middle Eastern oil focused largely on Mesopotamia.
The Great Power competition for concessions in neighboring Persia had spread
westward, stimulated by favorable prewar reports of Mesopotamian oil potential.
In fact, one of the major factors in defining Iraq's boundaries was the
prospect of a secure pipeline as well as rail and air routes to Palestine
and the Mediterranean. Together, Iraq and Transjordan formed a strategic
corridor for Britain, linking the Persian Gulf and Anglo-Persian oil production
to the British mandate of Palestine and the West. The route across northern
Arabia seemed secure, with members of the Hashemite family on the Iraqi
and Transjordanian thrones.5

In 1930 relations between Iraq and Great Britain underwent a basic change.
A treaty widened Iraqi nominal independence considerably, although it left
Britain with a major role in foreign policy and granted Britain base rights
in Iraq. Still, in 1932 Iraq became the first former mandate to gain a
seat in the League of Nations, and a British ambassador replaced the high
commissioner.6

The first decade of nominal independence for Iraq coincided with a critical
period in the development of the oil economies of the Persian Gulf region.
In 1932 the Bahrain Petroleum Company struck oil on that rather obscure
Gulf island. The modest discovery brought American oil interests in the
form of Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) into the Gulf and, more significantly,
turned the attention of surveyors to the Arabian mainland, only 20 miles
away, where the geological structure was identical to that of Bahrain.
The news was especially welcome in Kuwait, where the economy faced ruin
as the Japanese success with artificially cultivated pearls destroyed the
demand for natural pearls brought up by

6

divers in Kuwaiti coastal waters. Kuwait desperately needed new sources
of income, and the oil discoveries held out hope for the future.7

The rest of the decade saw a succession of oil discoveries and agreements.
In May 1933 Standard Oil and Saudi Arabia signed a concession for exploiting
local petroleum deposits. In the next year, the Kuwait Oil Company, a joint
company formed by Gulf Oil Corporation of the United States and the British
Petroleum Company of Great Britain, made a similar deal with the emir of
Kuwait. The first big strikes in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia came in 1938.
The interdependence of the industrialized world with the oil economies
of the Persian Gulf was just beginning.8

World War II and the Persian Gulf Region

World War II sped up the process by which the former parts of the Ottoman
Empire became nation-states. After that war, and especially after the loss
of India in 1947, Great Britain's priorities in the Gulf changed. It found
the region no longer necessary as a military frontier to protect its Indian
interests but hoped to maintain a presence in the region because of its
growing economic involvement in the oil fields.

In much of the Persian Gulf the change to nationhood was preceded by
a period of more explicit Western control. In Iraq, Britain put down a
wartime attempt to sever its control and depose the monarchy. British occupation
of Iraq for the duration of the war followed.

The United States too became directly involved in the Gulf as part of
its effort to send supplies to the Soviet Union for the war against Germany.9
When the United States Army occupied much of Iran and set up the Persian
Gulf command in 1942, ignorance of the region was widespread among Americans,
policy makers as well as the public. The War Department had no maps of
Persia when the decision was made to move into the country, and the State
Department's Division of Near-Eastern Affairs had a staff of thirteen,
only three of whom spoke some regional language. Initially there seemed
little reason for concern. At the time, the United States produced over
60 percent of the world's oil, and the Gulf region, including Iran, Iraq,
and Arabian Peninsula, pumped only 5 percent. Wartime demands for oil began
the long-term shift of the industry's center of gravity from the Gulf of
Mexico and Caribbean to the Middle East, and Americans were quick to adjust.10

As U.S. interest in the region grew, European control began to wane.
Both the winners and losers in the war were too weary to contest the Middle
East's drive for complete independence. Syria gained freedom from France
in 1945. Jordan kept the Hashemite monarchy but broke its tie with Britain
in 1946. In the most dramatic and traumatic act of nation-building of the
period, the Jewish state of Israel emerged from the shambles of the Palestine
mandate in 1948. The British decline in the region, under way from about
the start of World War II, was gathering momentum.11

7

Supply train in the Persian corridor en route to the Soviet Union,
loaded with armored vehicles

The Rising Tide of Nationalism

The 1950s evolved as a revolutionary decade in the Middle East. The first
shock came in September 1951 when the Iranian government abruptly nationalized
the former Anglo-Persian Oil Company-the oldest of the Western concessions.
The change was brief. In 1954 the government of Iranian Prime Minister
Mohammed Mossadegh was overthrown with U.S. assistance, and a new consortium
of Western companies took over the oil concession in October 1954. Americans
dominated the new group, with substantial British and lesser French minority
interests. The United States was emerging as the dominant Western influence
in the region, particularly in the oil industry.12

Britain withdrew from Egypt in 1954, and two years later President Gamal
Abdul Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, triggering an ill-conceived effort
in 1956 by Britain and France, along with Israel, to destabilize and overthrow
the Egyptian government. The Suez crisis may have taught Western powers
much about the volatility of the Middle East, but it also confirmed Middle
Eastern suspicions of foreign imperialism.

Also in 1956 the youthful Hashemite King Hussein of Jordan dismissed
the British commander of his army. In 1958 Egypt and Syria formed the short-lived
United Arab Republic, a brief experiment in Pan-Arabism. The revolutionary
tide reached Iraq in the same year. A bloody military uprising overthrew
Hussein's relatives and revoked the alliance with Britain.13

8

The 1958 coup by elements of the Iraqi armed forces known as "the Free
Officers" brought Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim to power. Qasim replaced
a regime that had never built viable political institutions to sustain
its rule and depended, much like the late Ottoman regime, on the army and
bureaucracy as well as family and personal ties for support. Although the
work of a small group, the coup reflected widespread discontent with the
monarchy's foreign policy, particularly the strong ties to the West and
the lack of domestic reform. The new regime's agenda became clear when
it demanded major revisions in the nation's relationship with the Iraq
Petroleum Company.14

In Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, oil became the focus of the
Arab nationalist tide of the 1950s and 1960s. A 1957 conference of Arab
oil experts broached the possibility of an organization of oil exporting
states. Three years later, in September 1960, those states created the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at a meeting in Baghdad,
marking the start of a new period of growing assertiveness among oil producers
in the Middle East.15 Nationalizations of oil industries in
Libya and Algeria followed as producing countries everywhere took on dominant
roles in their relations with oil companies, a transition that climaxed
in the OPEC embargo of oil to the West during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli
War.

By the 1960s the political order established by Britain in the Middle
East had fallen apart. The British had created an imposing institutional
facade but had not put down many deep roots. Perhaps their most lasting
legacy was an accelerated drive for modernization, financed by the revenues
from the oil industry that they had helped nurture. With an overall colonial
policy that envisioned gradual conversion of colonies to membership in
the Commonwealth, the British had also encouraged indigenous involvement
in public administration and created the context in which the nationalist
movements could develop. However, this gradualist approach ultimately foundered
in the face of Arab and Jewish nationalism. In 1969, already long preoccupied
with its economic problems, Britain announced its intent to withdraw its
remaining forces from the Middle East. Two years later, the last British
troops left Aden at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, leaving
the region devoid of the sometimes unwelcome stabilizing power that Great
Britain had provided.16

The Qasim Regime and the Kuwaiti Border

The 1958 coup marked the beginning of political instability in Iraq. Despite
economic and social reforms, Qasim alienated Arab nationalists as well
as Western conservatives. He angered the United States by his flirtations
with communism and the British by his oil policy. Syria and Egypt resented
his harsh treatment of domestic opponents, who included the members of
the new Ba'th, or Renaissance, party. That group, initially

organized in Syria just after World War II, combined in its program
the two main threads of Arab political thought, Pan-Arabism and radical
social change. The Ba'th's tight cellular organization made the party one
of the most effective political groups in the region. Disturbed by the
growing prominence of Communists in Qasim's government and the failure
of a nationalist anti-Communist uprising in northern Iraq, Ba'th leaders
concluded that Qasim had to go.17

The growing internal and external opposition to the Qasim government
reached its climax in 1961. During that year, a revolt among the Kurds
in northern Iraq gave the Ba'th allies in its struggle with the regime.
But even more serious was Qasim's reaction to Kuwaiti independence. A 1913
treaty between Turkish and British officials had fixed the boundary

10

between Kuwait and the Ottoman Empire. However, the outbreak of the
World War kept the Ottoman government from formally ratifying the agreement.
Iraq accepted that demarcation upon its independence in 1932 but soon changed
its mind and asserted its rights to parts of Kuwait. The claim reflected
the nation's concern with its limited access to the sea, by way of its
48-mile coastline on the Persian Gulf.18

After the 1958 coup, Iraqi leaders actively promoted political instability
in the oil-rich monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula. That policy had its
roots in antimonarchical fervor and rivalry with Iran for influence in
the Gulf. In Kuwait the long-standing border dispute exacerbated the conflict
between the radical Iraqi regime and the traditional sheikhdom. Iraq based
its maximum original claim to all of Kuwait on the sheikhdom's Ottoman
past. The more recent minimum version focused on the islands of Warbah
and Bubiyan, which dominated the approach to the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.
Iraq claimed those as former parts of the Ottoman province of Al Basrah.19

President Qasim revived the larger claim in 1961, asserting that all
of Kuwait had once been part of Basrah Province. Kuwait, he declared, was
an arbitrary creation of the British. Six days after Britain granted Kuwait
independence on 19 June 1961, Iraq claimed the entire sheikhdom and prepared
an invasion. The Arab League supported Kuwait, admitting the emirate to
membership on 20 July, but Iraq backed off only after Britain responded
to pleas from its former colony by sending troops. Forces from Arab League
members also entered Kuwait in September, stayed into the following year,
and departed only when the danger seemed to be past.20

The affair proved disastrous for Iraq. Qasim severed ties with the Arab
League and broke relations with nations that recognized the former British
protectorate, among them Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, and the United States.
The result completed his isolation from the international community and
immensely increased the vulnerability of his regime.21

The Ba'th Regime

Qasim's government lasted five years before an Arab nationalist coup organized
by the Ba'th ended his rule in 1963. The new regime fell apart within a
year, but the Ba'th regrouped to lead a coalition back into power on 17
July 1968. Under Ba'th leadership, Iraq moved toward a more narrow, regional
orientation, away from the West and Egyptian-sponsored Pan-Arabism. The
Hashemite connection to Jordan was broken permanently, as was any meaningful
relationship between the Iraqi Ba'th and the Syrian branch of the party.
The Ba'thists also increasingly came to identify the United States as the
major supporter of the conservative monarchies in the Gulf and as an enemy
of reform.22

By the time of the July 1968 coup, a clique of leaders from the town
of Tikrit, among them Saddam Hussein, who was the assistant secretary gen-

11

eral, dominated the Iraqi Ba'th party. Although not alone in bringing
about the coup, the Ba'th soon took full control and significantly changed
the structure and orientation of the Iraqi government. A one-party state
with an impressive institutional structure emerged, along with gradual
consolidation of power in the hands of one man to a degree not seen since
the last days of the monarchy. Buttressed after 1972 by arms provided under
a treaty with the Soviet Union, the Ba'th created a strong central authority.23

Iraq revived the border dispute with Kuwait in 1973, hoping to gain
sovereignty over Warbah and Bubiyan islands in an effort to protect its
second largest port at Umm Qasr. Fighting broke out in March, when Iraqi
troops attacked a Kuwaiti border post overlooking the port and naval base
of Umm Qasr. Three soldiers, one Iraqi and two Kuwaitis, were killed. Iraq
demanded a portion of the coast south of the port city and Warbah and Bubiyan,
but retracted its demands under international pressure. The situation gradually
improved as Iraq became preoccupied with its own development programs and
made a general effort to improve relations with its neighbors during the
second half of the 1970s.24

The episode revealed the fragility of Kuwait's position in the face
of determined Iraqi aggression and even raised the possibility of an Iraqi
menace to Saudi Arabian oil fields. In recognition of the danger to their
own interests, the Saudis supported the Kuwaiti government and even sent
15,000 troops to help defend their small neighbor. They also exerted diplomatic
pressure through the Arab League. Although Iraq backed down, it did not
give up its claims. Tensions remained high for several years, and occasional
reports of Iraqi incursions reminded all concerned that the dispute remained
unresolved.25

The United States and Middle Eastern Oil

As Britain declined as a regional force in the Middle East, the United
States became more influential. World War II had raised American awareness
of the region's strategic importance, while the growing involvement of
American oil companies had made the region more important to American security
and prosperity. Gradually the prewar uncommitted benevolence was replaced
by more active and explicit involvement.26

The initial association of the United States in Arab minds with the
principles of self-determination and anticolonialism helped establish American
credibility in the Middle East. That early goodwill faded, however, as
American support of Israel became evident. Arab states lost confidence
in the evenhandedness of the United States and came to view it as an enemy.

American economic interests in Middle Eastern oil remained largely in
private hands. The need for direct government involvement did not become
clear until profound changes took place in the oil industry, including
the final wave of nationalizations that followed the dramatic 1973 price
increases. The United States needed assurance of regular supplies and

12

The Dharan civil air terminal

sought to channel the huge oil profits into areas that enhanced the
American fiscal stability and prosperity. After Britain withdrew from the
region, the United States adopted a "twin pillars" policy, encouraging
the development of regional power centers in Saudi Arabia and Iran, which
would be relied on to maintain stability and protect American interests.27
The new American policy also served another purpose-to block Soviet influence
in the region.

The United States and Saudi Arabian Defense

With the emergence of the United States as a bulwark against Soviet influence,
the government of Saudi Arabia began to turn toward the United States.
The success of a small American military training mission late in World
War II helped encourage what ultimately became a long-term connection between
the armed forces of both nations. The training mission later expanded to
several Saudi bases and remained an important part of postwar American
assistance to Saudi Arabia. In 1950 President Harry S. Truman explicitly
assured King Abdul Aziz of American support for the preservation of Saudi
independence and territorial integrity. Closer ties benefited both countries.
The United States gained access to and use of the Dhahran airfield. In
exchange the United States provided arms and training for the small Saudi
army and helped develop the naval and air services.28

The work of the United States Army Corps of Engineers was singularly
important to the development of that military relationship. The association
dated from the last year of the war, when the corps built a military

13

airfield at Dhahran, and gradually solidified with completion of massive
construction programs that extended into the 1980s. Although mainly military,
these efforts also included civil projects such as the facilities for the
national television network and the Dhahran civil air terminal. The terminal
project in particular, a striking piece of work that won the American Institute
of Architects' first honors in 1963 for designer Minoru Yamasaki, established
with the Saudi government the corps' reputation for quality engineering
and construction. The Engineer Assistance Agreement of 24 May 1965 cemented
that relationship and provided the basis for subsequent Corps of Engineers
work in the kingdom.29

In the 1970s the relationship changed from that of client and patron
to a complex interdependence. The Saudis needed American support for their
security as well as help in development projects; the United States needed
Saudi cooperation regarding the supply and price of oil and the recycling
of Saudi oil profits. Early in the decade the Saudis, with one eye on the
power vacuum created by the British withdrawal from the Gulf, asked for
a special American military mission to study projects related to national
security and make recommendations for future assistance. In response, the
United States conducted several studies of Saudi defense requirements and
began the sale of modern fighters to the Saudi air force. Other large military
sales programs followed, as did modernization and training programs, their
costs surging along with Saudi oil profits.30

As part of the vastly expanded program of assistance, the United States
endorsed a Saudi military strategy that envisioned permanent deployment
of large portions of Saudi forces in elaborate military cities near threatened
frontiers. They consisted of command and control sites, airfields, hangars,
depots, maintenance and repair shops, and elaborate cantonments for soldiers,
their families, and supporting civilians. The sites included Khamis Mushayt,
close to Yemen; Tabuk in the north near Jordan and Israel; and Hafar al
Batin, next to Kuwait and Iraq.31

The last of those, initially called A1 Batin Military City but later
renamed for King Khalid, began in 1972. Originally intended for three brigades
and a tactical airfield and with an estimated price tag of $9 billion,
it was the most costly construction project ever undertaken by the Corps
of Engineers. In the 1980s declining oil profits forced reduction of the
base to two-brigade size and postponed construction of the airfield. However,
when the corps turned the city over to the Ministry of Defense and Aviation
in 1986, the final cost was still $7 billion.32

The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia was based
on mutual but not identical interests. Saudi survival depended in large
measure on the kingdom's ties to the United States, but the government's
specific concerns were complex. The Saudis wanted visible American help
through the sale of sophisticated weapons and treatment that indicated
that they were as important as America's other major regional allies, Israel
and Egypt. The major menace to Saudi Arabia came from the Gulf, where both
Iraq and Iran were potentially formidable foes.

14

VII Corps area, King Khalid Military City

The Saudis counted on Iran to check Iraq and the United States to curb
Iran. The Soviet Union represented a more remote danger. When it came to
the security of Saudi oil the interests of both the United States and Saudi
Arabia were nearly identical.33

The Carter Doctrine

A series of events at the end of the 1970s jolted the United States into
a more active approach to the region. To the west of Arabia, across the
Red Sea, Ethiopia emerged as a Marxist state and almost immediately went
to war with neighboring Sudan. In Iran, Mohammed Riza Shah Pahlevi's regime
collapsed in early 1979 and a bloody revolution followed, bringing to power
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's intensely anti-American Islamic republic.
In November a group of radical Muslims in Saudi Arabia attacked the great
mosque in Mecca, calling into question the stability of the Saudi regime,
and before the year ended, Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan. The entire
region seemed to be in turmoil, and American policy demanded reconsideration.34

On 23 January 1980, President Jimmy Carter announced what became known
as the Carter Doctrine. In the traditional State of the Union speech before
Congress, Carter declared that "an attempt by any outside force to gain
control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the
vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will
be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."35
Although such a position had long been implied by American support of Saudi
Arabia, the speech marked a turning point.

15

President Carter acted quickly to secure bases that would enable the
United States to move forces into the region. The United States gained
access in 1980 to the island of Masira from the government of Oman, the
only Gulf country to allow American forces on its territory in peacetime,
and wartime use of supporting bases in Somalia (Berbera), Kenya (Mombasa),
and Egypt (Ras Banas). A rapid deployment force, established in October
1979, was renamed the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force in March 1980.
Although initially without any assigned troop units, the new organization
provided the planning staff necessary for more ambitious contingency operations
in the Persian Gulf.36 Exercise BRIGHT STAR 81 in November 1980
was a more concrete gesture. The United States sent a battalion of the
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) for two weeks of training with Egyptian
forces in the desert west of Cairo. A squadron of eight A-7 aircraft and
the rapid deployment force headquarters accompanied the battalion. The
exercise symbolized the Carter administration's commitment to protect vital
American interests in Southwest Asia.37

The Onset of the Iran-Iraq War

The tension between Iran and Iraq had deep roots. Long-standing major problems
included rivalries between the minority Sunni Muslims who dominated Iraq
and the majority Shiites, Kurdish aspirations to nationhood that challenged
both countries as well as Turkey and Syria, and disputes over borders that
confined Iraq to its narrow and tenuous access to the Persian Gulf by way
of the Shatt al Arab waterway. In 1969, when Britain announced its intent
to withdraw from the Gulf, Iran and Iraq already seemed poised for war.
Iran was concerned over its neighbor's Pan-Arab Ba'th ideology, zeal for
revolutionary socialism, and antiWestern orientation. Iraq feared the Shah's
aggressive stance, buttressed as it was by a large armament program and
support from the United States. That year did see a small confrontation
over the boundary along the Gulf, and disputes flared in the 1970s as well,
once when Iran occupied three Gulf islands in 1971 and several times later
over the border.38

Most of those differences appeared to have been put to rest by the Algiers
Treaty in 1975. This agreement settled the border dispute over the Shatt
al Arab waterway in Iran's favor and ended the Shah's support of Kurdish
insurgents in Iraq. At the same time, Iraq renounced a long-standing claim
to the southwestern portion of Iran, an area called Arabistan by Iraq and
Khuzestan by Iran, and recognized Iranian control of the disputed Gulf
islands.

Saddam Hussein, already a dominant force in the Ba'th party, took over
the presidency in 1979, the same year that the fundamentalist Shiite regime
came to power in Iran. The Iranian revolutionaries revived past disputes
and added a new one, Iranian incitement of Shiite discontent in Iraq. When
the Iranian monarchy was overthrown, Iraq

16

denounced the Algiers Treaty and demanded restoration of the eastern
bank of the Shatt al Arab as the border. After a period of mutual sporadic
border violations and skirmishes, Iraq attacked its neighbor in earnest
in the summer of 1980.39

The war, extremely ill conceived, resulted directly from President Saddam
Hussein's poor political judgment. The situation could have been contained,
as it had been in the past, and Iraqi interests could have been promoted
short of war. But Iran appeared weak and disorganized, and the Iraqi president
thought he could easily win. His miscalculation of his opponent and corresponding
overestimate of his own ability to impose a solution proved disastrous.
It was exactly the kind of error that a highly personalized leadership
lacking institutional checks and balances was inclined to make.40

The Reagan Approach

The Ronald W Reagan administration, which took office in 1981 when the
war between Iran and Iraq was only a few months old, built on the Carter
Doctrine. Reagan gave permanence and substance to the new approach and
expanded the doctrine beyond the original commitment to deal with threats
from outside the Gulf to cover any threat to Saudi Arabia. The United States
would not, he avowed at a news conference on 1 October 1981, "stand by
and see that taken by anyone that would shut off that oil." Moreover, he
indicated readiness to keep open the Strait of Hormuz in the event that
Iran tried to close the Persian Gulf to shipping.41

Reagan's military plans for Gulf security were more ambitious than those
of his predecessor. The Reagan administration regarded the lack of an actual
American military presence as a tacit invitation to Soviet intervention.
The refusal of the Persian Gulf States to accept American military forces
frustrated the Reagan government, so the new administration strengthened
the rapid deployment concept with significant expenditures for military
construction in the Middle East and nearby areas. In the first Reagan administration,
the United States spent nearly $1 billion on construction and support facilities,
in Morocco, at Lajes Field in the Azores, and on the Indian Ocean island
base of Diego Garcia. Reagan also made the first official assignment of
forces to the rapid deployment force on 24 April 1981 and gave it a prominent
place in the defense establishment.42

While the Carter administration had buried the rapid deployment force
within the U.S. Army Readiness Command, Reagan gave it visibility and prominence.
In October 1981 the connection to the Readiness Command ended, and the
task force became a separate command reporting directly to the secretary
of defense through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One month later, Exercise
BRIGHT STAR 82 showed the growth of plans and forces, testing a broad range
of tactical and logistical capabilities. On 1 January 1983, the force became
one of six U.S. multiservice commands. Renamed United States Central Command,
its specified theater of

17

operations included Southwest Asia and northeast Africa. Its commander
was given charge of nearly all American military activity in that part
of the world, including planning for contingencies, coordinating joint
exercises involving American and other forces, and administering security
assistance. The command oversaw the airborne warning and control system
(AWACS), the tanker aircraft at Riyadh, and the Navy's five-ship Middle
East Force. Its total deployment potential stood at 300,000.43

Despite the increase in the size and capability of the deployable force,
there were limits to the American ability to move its forces overseas.
The United States still needed bases and facilities in the Persian Gulf,
and, although it alone in the West could contribute significantly to the
defense of the Gulf, it could not transfer a large combat force on short
notice. Throughout the 1980s, Central Command planners emphasized helping
friendly nations in the Middle East defend themselves through training,
arms sales, and military liaison as well as joint maneuvers. The force
reassured countries like Saudi Arabia, which rejected an overt American
presence but needed to know that support was available in an emergency.44

The success of a rapid transfer of U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf depended
on Saudi acceptance and support. Whether the threat came from the Soviet
Union or an aggressive neighbor such as Iran or Iraq, access to Dhahran
and King Khalid Military City were necessary for any major deployment.
Bases at Diego Garcia and elsewhere provided peripheral facilities but
were too remote to use as operational centers for the defense of the oil
facilities of the upper and central Persian Gulf.45

The Gulf Cooperation Council

While the rapid deployment force was an ingredient in the American recipe
for regional stability, the United States also wanted to foster the establishment
of a viable partnership among the Persian Gulf States. When war started
between Iran and Iraq in 1980, Saudi Arabia and the states along the southern
shore of the Gulf watched warily. Some, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain
among them, had experienced Iranian threats even before the war started.

The Arab states around the Gulf generally backed Iraq. Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait were particularly outspoken in their support. Both contributed
substantially to the $40 to $50 billion that all the Gulf States provided
Iraq. In addition, both allowed Iraq to use their ports for arms shipments
and sold oil on behalf of Iraq. Saudi Arabia also allowed Iraq to build
and use a pipeline through its territory.46

Although Kuwait was among the most generous contributors to the Iraqi
cause, there were some things it would not do. Early in the war, Iraq renewed
a proposal it had made in 1975 for 99-year leases on the islands of Bubiyan
and Warbah. Kuwait refused. In 1984 Saddam Hussein scaled down his request
to a 20-year lease in exchange for an agreement to a definitive border.
Once more Kuwait declined.47

18

Despite their open support of Iraq during the early stages of the war,
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia understood that in the long run Iraq threatened
their security. With this threat in mind, they led the effort to create
the Gulf Cooperation Council, a regional defense alliance that was established
in May 1981. In addition to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, members included Bahrain,
Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, a confederation made up of the
sheikhdoms of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujiera, Ra's al Khaymah, Sharjah,
and Umm al Qaywayn. Iraq, which in 1974 had proclaimed itself "the most
important and advanced Arab country in the area" and consequently protector
of the Gulf "against dangers and encroachments," sought, but was denied,
membership. The council tried to contain the war between its powerful neighbors
and ultimately bring both sides to the bargaining table.48

Militarily, the Saudi armed forces formed the key to the council's limited
defensive capabilities. The kingdom was by far the largest and most powerful
of the six members. With oil reserves and revenues that dwarfed those of
the others, it had the largest armed forces and good lines of communications.
However, its military prowess was only imposing in contrast to that of
the other members. A lack of manpower severely limited the capabilities
of the Saudis, although the military infrastructure built under Corps of
Engineers contracts compensated somewhat by enabling the Saudis to take
advantage of the most technically advanced weapons.49

While Iran and Iraq slugged it out, the Gulf Cooperation Council progressed
toward its goal of creating an effective regional security structure. Despite
the pointed rejection of the Iraqi application, the members continued to
view fundamentalist Iran as the more immediate threat. Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait continued in the forefront as providers of material aid to Iraq.50

The council expressed interest in cooperation with the United States
but still wanted to keep actual forces at arm's length. Member states did
not agree with the United States regarding the nature of the threat to
regional stability. The United States emphasized the Soviet peril, at least
until the middle of the decade, when American policy makers began to put
more stress on strengthening the Arab side of the Gulf against a potential
Iranian threat to the flow of oil. The council always worried more about
its powerful and quarrelsome neighbors and Israel than about the Soviet
Union.51

The United States and the Iran-Iraq War

During the 1980s confusion in American policy caused a crisis in relations
with the Gulf States. In 1984 the United States, concerned that Iran might
win the war and become a long-range menace to the supply of oil, reestablished
diplomatic relations with Iraq, after a seventeen-year break. At the same
time, some American officials embarked on the clandestine sale of arms
to Iran, in direct contradiction to the official effort to withhold them
from Tehran. They channeled the money from that venture to

19

F-16 fighters at a Saudi air base during DESERT SHIELD

the support of a Nicaraguan insurgency dear to the heart of President
Reagan, casting considerable doubt on American purpose and reliability.52
The
United States also sold AWACS to the Saudis and began joint planning for
modernization of the Saudi air force, which had started shortly after the
fall of the Shah of Iran.53

In 1988, when Kuwait responded to Iranian attacks on its shipping by
asking the superpowers for protection, it found the United States eager
to provide assistance and reassurance of its steadfast support. To restore
its position in the Gulf, the United States agreed to reflag and convoy
Kuwaiti ships. Protection of the flow of oil was in any case still a paramount
American interest, and President Reagan affirmed his commitment to safeguard
Gulf exports. Along with the reflagging went a major American naval deployment
to protect the tankers.54

The United States and Saudi Arabia maintained their close military relationship
throughout the Iran-lraq war. American diplomats continued to enjoy easy
access to the ruling family, although they never convinced the Saudis to
agree formally to American access to their bases or abandon their opposition
to the stationing of American soldiers in the kingdom. The official Saudi
position was that both superpowers should keep their forces out of the
Persian Gulf. The Saudis, however, never objected to the American naval
contingent in Bahrain and other period-

20

ic displays of American might in threatening situations. Limited American
deployments, among them minesweepers, operational aircraft, and the AWACS,
were acceptable.55

Reinforcement by U.S. forces in an emergency was always a basic component
of Saudi defense planning, albeit only in event of a clear and immediate
threat. In fact, to many observers, Saudi installations appeared plainly
overbuilt, as if actually intended only for other forces. Saudi bases,
with their modern infrastructure and service facilities, could accept an
American deployment on very short notice. Those bases, combined with the
large quantities of American supplies and equipment purchased ostensibly
for Saudi use, ultimately constituted the virtual equivalent of American
bases in Saudi Arabia, albeit without the American personnel needed to
translate their potential into actual combat power.

The Saudi military buildup was principally oriented on aviation facilities.
The Saudis had the largest and some of the most modern air bases in the
region, with American contractor employees servicing their equipment and
American-trained technicians among their own ground crews. Although rejecting
any combined maneuvers, they recognized the need for cooperation with a
Central Command deployment when necessary. Short of that necessity, however,
they insisted that cooperation remain based on Saudi military buildups
with American arms and technical assistance. 56

Saudi purchases from the United States did facilitate a possible deployment
of Central Command forces to Southwest Asia. Any expeditionary force would
gain an advantage if its weapons, ammunition, and parts were compatible
to the equipment used by a potential host nation. The United States achieved
a large measure of interchangeability through military assistance to the
Gulf States, despite occasional frustration at the hands of American supporters
of Israel, who saw the provision of any arms and equipment to an Arab nation
in a different light.57

From the Iran-Iraq War to the Invasion of Kuwait

The Iran-lraq war ended in August 1988 with both sides exhausted and Iraq
claiming victory but without Iraqi success in achieving control of the
Shatt al Arab. Thereafter, the United States and the Gulf States continued
to support Iraq, with American policy in the Persian Gulf trying to moderate
Iraqi behavior through closer economic ties. Despite human rights abuses
and the continuing development of chemical and nuclear weapons, Iraq's
secular leadership seemed less threatening than Iran's religious zealots.
Meanwhile, the continued financial contributions of Saudi Arabia and the
sheikhdoms of the Gulf Cooperation Council enabled Iraq to rebuild its
armed forces, which had been mauled by eight years of war.58

In spite of the continued support of Iraq, there was a growing perception
in the United States that the major near-term threats to the states of
the southern Persian Gulf and to Western oil supplies came not from the
Soviet Union but from the Gulf region itself. The Iran-lraq war had

21

shown that both combatants had the resources to sustain massive forces,
even in the face of sizable losses. Both now had the experience of a decade
of war to go with traditions of political instability. Meanwhile, the Iranian
revolution represented a constant danger not only to Iraq, but the southern
Gulf States and the industrial West as well.59

The end of the war left Iraq both remarkably strong and desperatelyweak.
By regional standards, the Iraqi armed forces appeared formidable, and
the war seemed to have forged a strong feeling of national cohesion. Iraq
believed that it had won the war and defended Arab interests against the
traditional Persian threat. Iraq also saw itself as a major oil power with
a dominant role in the region. At the same time, it had piled up a debt
estimated as high as $70 billion. The $5 to $6 billion in interest that
the government paid annually consumed nearly one-third of its oil revenues.60

The war crippled Iraq's economic development program and stifled the
social mobility that had attended it. The years of fighting left much of
the nation's industrial capacity weakened and its ability to export oil
severely impaired. Economically, the war also diminished Iraq's international
position and forced the regime into a position of dependence on its wealthy
neighbors. That reliance actually represented a continuation of the relationship
that had sustained Iraq through the war, although Iraq was convinced that
it had not received adequate support. Iraqi resentment focused largely
on wealthy Kuwait, which held territory that Iraq coveted and considered
its own.61

Although the states of the southern Gulf did not appreciate the depth
of Iraqi bitterness at their supposedly inadequate support, they were not
blind to the threat implicit in Iraq's postwar military strength and confidence.
The Saudis knew that the border with Iraq was ideal for armor operations
and that the entire Arabian Peninsula was vulnerable to attack from the
northeast. Major Saudi oil facilities were only 200 miles away. King Khalid
Military City, with its two armored brigades, provided only limited security,
and other Gulf Cooperation Council members had no military forces of consequence.
Any assault on Kuwait might easily become the first stage of a two-phase
attack on the rest of the peninsula.62

The United States shared Saudi Arabia's concerns. Kuwait, the door to
the entire oil-producing region, was very vulnerable. Threats to its stability,
either from external or internal pressures, would have wide ramifications,
endangering the flow of oil and the economic health of the industrial West.63

In the two years after the fighting between Iran and Iraq ended, Iraq
increased its pressure on Kuwait. The war had left the Shatt al Arab approach
to Al Basrah and the city itself a shambles. The opening of the waterway
to shipping remained in the distant future. Iraq again turned its attention
to the border that it shared with Kuwait. In addition to demands for compensation
for revenues allegedly lost due to Kuwaiti oil sales in excess of OPEC
quotas and for oil pumped from oil

fields claimed by Iraq, Saddam Hussein's government renewed its interest
in Bubiyan and Warbah islands. He cleared the way for action by beginning
negotiations for a final settlement with Iran, massing troops on the Kuwaiti
border, and sounding out the American reaction to a possible military move
into Kuwait. Saddam appeared to ignore the restatement of the Carter Doctrine
by the administration of President George H. Bush in National Security
Directive 26 of October 1989, warning that the United States would defend
its vital interests by force if necessary.64

Meanwhile, Kuwait struggled to find a counterbalance to the increasing
Iraqi threat. It had a military agreement with Egypt that dated from the
last phase of the Iran-Iraq war and even made an overture toward Iran,
which might again serve as a potential counter to Iraq. But neither those
connections nor the Gulf Cooperation Council had the potential strength
to ward off a determined Iraqi attack. Kuwait needed protection, like that
provided by Great Britain at the turn of the century and by the United
States in 1987. Yet, like Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, Kuwait accepted
American construction support and air defense missiles but stopped short
of inviting an American presence in support of its own defense. That refusal,
grounded in strong feelings of national pride, race, and religion, reflected
an unrealistic assessment of its situation. As historian Theodore Draper
wrote during the year of the tanker war, in which Kuwaiti oil tankers began
to fly American flags, "Kuwait was too rich to be left alone and too weak
to defend itself."65

During the first seven months of 1990, Iraqi troop movements and presidential
bombast foreshadowed the impending crisis. But, like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait,
the United States did not recognize the imminence of the Iraqi threat until
it was too late.66 On 2 August 1990, when Iraqi tanks rolled
through Kuwait to the Saudi border and Saddam Hussein's government declared
that Kuwait no longer existed as an independent country, perceptions quickly
changed. President Bush quickly decided to uphold the Carter Doctrine and
commit the United States to direct military action.

With a large majority of the nations of the world opposed to the invasion
of Kuwait, President Bush built a broad-based coalition in support of intervention.
The United States, which took the lead in developing and coordinating opposition
to Iraq, achieved a diplomatic triumph of great magnitude and far-reaching
consequence. Urged forward by the United States, the United Nations General
Assembly imposed an embargo on Iraq, and the Security Council voted to
condemn the invasion. Almost immediately coalition forces moved toward
Southwest Asia. By far the largest contributor to the force, the United
States honored commitments to Saudi Arabia first made by President Truman.67
The result was Operation DESERT SHIELD, which before it was over became
the DESERT STORM.

16 Mart, Modern History of Iraq, p. 29; William Jackson, Withdrawal
from Empire, A Military View (London: Batsford, Ltd., 1986), p. 125,
Yergin, The Prize, pp. 565-66, Fromkin, A Peace To End
All Peace, pp. 562-63.

26 David Holden and Richard Johns, The House of Saud: The Rise and
Rule of the Most Powerful Dynasty in the Arab World (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1981), p. 149; Robert W. Stookey, America & the
Arab States: An Uneasy Encounter (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1975),
pp. xiii, 54-55.

29 Stookey, America & the Arab States, p. 88, MS, John T.
Greenwood, Diplomacy Through Construction: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
in Saudi Arabia, Office of History, Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
[19881, pp. 2-4, 6. All other unpublished documents are in U.S. Army Center
of Military History (CMH), Washington, D.C., files unless otherwise stated.

41 Peterson, Defending Arabia, p. 7; Quote from Johnson, The
Military as an Instrument of U.S. Policy, p.40; Harold H. Saunders,
"The Iran-Iraq War: Implications for US Policy," in Nall, ed., Gulf
Security and the Iran-Iraq War, p. 65.

42 Khadduri, The Gulf War, p.144; Cordesman, The Gulf
and the West, p. 137; Johnson, The Military as an Instrument of
U.S. Policy, p. 95.

43 Peterson, Defending Arabia, p. 153; Johnson, The
Military as an Instrument of U.S. Policy, p. 99.